2006-07-05

The Alberta Mariners have decided to make some bold roster changes, and 2 trade requests were offered over the weekend. One of these, both were rejected and counter-offers were made. I'm hesitating over the one, but thought the better of this one:

Travis Hafner and Derek Lowe for Justin Morneau and Bronson Arroyo.

Now while I'm giving up a 1st baseman (Morneau) with roughly equal stats to Hafner for this yea, but with historically lower stats, along with a pitcher who has been playing way ahead of his curve (Arroyo in 2005 had a 4.51 ERA and 1.30 WHIP for the season... and his August/September numbers were atrocious: 5.40/1.53 in August and 4.97/1.42 in Sept.) versus a pitcher whos last two months last season were far and away his best.

My team is currently in 2nd last place, and at this point any shakeup is a good shakeup. So what happens within 2 hours of this trade being accepted by me (and therefore up for review?) A mid-ranger immediately posts with "Another bad trade! Cancel it!" So far, the trade is still valid, so we shall see what happens when the smoke clears.

This league is for some reason that one league you have where a couple people agonize over every aspect of everybody's trades, and if they find one side ends up ahead in any sort of way, its an immediate call for cancellation. There have only been 2 trades made in the league this year: Jeff Kent, Barry Bonds, and Mark Kotsay for Eric Chavez, Manny Ramirez, and Lance Berkman (which was approved despite 3 people opposing it); and Todd Helton, Joe Crede, and Paul Byrd for Chase Utley, Barry Bonds, and Pedro Martinez (which was rejected by the league).

Now the second one most certainly is lopsided (almost any Pedro deal is, especially with Utley's 2B qualification factored in). But in the first one, the main "loser" aspect one can think of is giving up Berkman's big numbers along with a quality 3B in Eric Chavez. But the team that was losing Berkman/Chavez already has Todd Helton and Pedro Feliz and Ty Wigginton and Nomar Garciaparra on it...it could afford to give up a 3B qualifier. These are the sort of things that people need to look at when evaluating trades: filling the gaps.

For example, I'm trying to pick up a stud reliever in return for 2 quality hitters in one of my leagues. (I know 2-for-1 can be daunting, but still). Akinori Otsuka for Coco Crisp and Ramon Hernandez was one of my attempts. For another team, I tried Francisco Liriano for Chipper Jones and Travis Hafner. The first example I settled for a poorer pitcher because he doesn't need any 3B/Util spots, but OF/C...and I don't have enough quality assets to make that trade. In the 2nd, he doesn't have a plethora of 3B assets, so Chipper and Hafner's super-powers might pry Liriano away from him.

Its all relative, you understand.

Update, July 7 2006 8:30pm: The trade has gone through. Here's what the (lead?) objector had to say on the subject: